Apply Today
Application deadline: Friday April 21 at 11:59pm
Program overview
The Rural Business Innovation Lab (RBIL) is a cohort-based, entrepreneurial development program aiming to redefine the false narrative of rural decline. RBIL will build a peer network dense with innovative ideas, professional expertise, and resources needed for underserved rural entrepreneurs to start and scale their businesses.
RBIL aims to harness the current moment of COVID-19 recovery and take what we have learned from previous cohort-based programming to expand our focus on rural innovation businesses in fields like agriculture, ag tech, sustainability, construction, waste management, water reclamation, workforce development, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our current industry focus is on accelerating and building resilience within the natural resource and new climate economy value-chain. RBIL has four main objectives:
- Develop a learning network among innovative rural Minnesota and Wisconsin entrepreneurs
- Provide 1-on-1 consulting to cohort members, equipping them with free professional resources to help them scale (such as business planning, grant writing, marketing, and access to capital)
- Create an innovative finance pipeline for rural entrepreneurs
- Utilize robust storytelling methods to highlight these entrepreneurs and empower their communities, generating positive media within the Upper Midwest and beyond
What do you get for participating?
- 8 months of free one-on-one consulting with weekly meetings
- Engaging educational workshops with industry leaders
- A community of 8-12 entrepreneurial peers
Eligibility Criteria
The eligibility requirements may be waived for applicants that are mission aligned with advancing rural communities and the natural resources value-chain. Please contact Robert Harris, Lead Consultant if you don’t fit these criteria but still wish to apply.
- Are you an innovator looking to build the next big company based in rural America? We want to hear from you.
- Must be a young and/or small business looking to grow.
- We aim to work with companies that have anywhere from $50,000 to $5,000,000 in annual sales. These companies are typically too small for traditional investment banking but need that kind of financial technical assistance to raise equity and debt.
- We understand that all great ideas have to start somewhere, so we have also reserved two cohort slots for companies that are in the early stage of business development (pre-revenue).
- Business must be part of the natural resources value-chain. Are your products or services tangential to agriculture, sustainability, conservation, water, clean energy, waste management, etc? Is your business part of the Circular Economy or the New Climate Economy?
- Each participating business must identify a business challenge to tackle for the 8 months of the program. This could be a single large challenge or multiple smaller challenges. Your challenge does not have to be defined to apply; although, having a clear goal articulated may give your application priority.
Apply Today
Application deadline: Friday April 21 at 11:59pm
Consulting team
- Robert Harris III
- Lead Consultant
- robert.harris@cedausa.com
- 507-606-1524
- Courtney Bergey Swanson
- Lead Consultant
- courtney.bergey@cedausa.com
- 507-251-9272
The Rural Business Innovation Lab is made possible by support from Compeer Financial.
